The heart of the matter...

Sometimes, I can look back to the worst parts of my life and see where I might have been helped without realizing it. And I come out stronger and more whole.

Actually, I'll paste part of the story I blogged about earlier- the story I sent to the people who deleted my posts, my one last story of generosity (actually, kind of two).

April 27th, 2001, I was snowboarding in Whistler's terrain park. It was raining off and on and the snow was terrible. Back then, I was aiming at the Olympics in halfpipe, which was making its official debut as a medal sport in 2002 in Salt Lake City. But it was spring, and the halfpipe was gone and all I was left with were kickers (i.e. giant jumps) to play with. I attempted a front flip and as I fell, my knee hit my nose and broke it, but I kept going. I did another huge air, and because I landed successfully and aced the jump, I hiked back up to do it again. As I strapped in, I started to get woozy from the nose break, so I thought, "I'd better hurry," for some reason, and took the jump way harder than I anticipated, got probably at least thirty feet of air, and landed badly and broke myself. My athletic therapist would tell me later on after analyzing my helmet and the impact dent my head had made within it, that had I not been wearing my helmet, I would have died.

Two days later, I drove home (64 hour drive), and less than a week after that, I lost nearly all of my eyesight and my eyes became completely bloodshot, on top of the serious head pain I had been experiencing since the fall.

When I got home, nobody seemed to care that I'd returned. I was basically a useless cadaver of a person for a while, and the security guard of my dad's building caught me as I went to my car for a load of stuff. He was on the second floor (which was an open balcony-type thing), and he dropped down a waterlily, and said, "I'm glad you're back." I'd never gotten a flower from a boy before.

Within a month, things turned badly between my dad and I and I ended up moving in with the security guard into an apartment in a suburb of Montreal (where 97% of the people were French). Within four months, things became abusive. He started small, with things like, "Everybody believes in you except me," and gradually moved on to worse emotional abuse and then physical abuse (although, that part was pretty minor in comparison...).

Anyway, very late one night in 2004, things had gotten so bad that I just didn't want to live anymore. I told him I was done with this life, and he said, "Go for it. Just do it so I can have some peace." I threw on whatever coat I had lying around, which ended up being a useless, thin corduroy coat, and I ran down to my car, unsure of where I was going to go, but sure that something bad was going to happen.

Of course, it was winter, and my car had a layer of ice on it... There was nobody around, and I started scraping, trying to be quick about it so I could get on with it.

Out of nowhere, this guy walked up to me and asked, "Are you ok? Do you need help?" and started helping me scrape off my car. Obviously, I said I was fine, and he replied, "Are you sure you're ok?"

It was like 2AM, and here's this guy, who not only comes out of nowhere to help, but was English too? The odds of that happening were so slim. 3% tops, if you go by the census statistics.

In saying I was fine, I kind of made a promise to him that I would stay fine. I try to be honest, even about the little things, and to have said I was fine and then go hurt myself would have been deceitful in the worst way. The thought had crossed my mind that if this guy ever found out that he helped me die more quickly, a piece of his good heart probably would have died with me. So I kept my promise.

But really, what was that about? Where did this guy come from? What made him help me, especially at that hour of the night?

And about the first half, how did I survive that at all? My body was mangled. I slammed into the hard packed snow over and over from such a crazy height and at a tremendous speed. Sure, I wore a helmet, but the threshold of helmets isn't all that high.

Looking back, it makes me wonder if that was God and/or Jesus helping me get through some of the falls that hurt the most.

But then fairly recently, I got emotionally pounded. I got hurt like I don't remember being hurt before. I've endured all sorts of abuse and this series of events just broke me. But this time I had God and I had Jesus... But I couldn't feel them at all. How come in hindsight they're there, but in the moment when a girl needs the support, they're MIA?

I grew angry, but I never stopped learning. There had to be an answer. There had to be a reason I wasn't feeling it.

And then one day, I was standing in the shower (my thinking place, lol) and I realized why God wasn't there, why He wasn't helping me. I wasn't falling. I was getting back up again. I was past the mangled part and already into the healing part. The worst was over, and I had already handled it.

Somebody I know projected religious stereotypes onto me one night, and I told him, "What if God is the strength that gets you through things? What if that drive to survive that you see as independent strength is really God pushing you and helping you to stand back up again? What if He's working from the inside out? What if God is your heartbeat?"

Through all the manglings, physical and emotional, I've always healed eventually and more importantly, through it all, my heart has never stopped beating.